Film
Adam Sweeting
Shamed and reviled, Richard Nixon had the misfortune (albeit self-authored) to be the star of one of the murkiest chapters in American Presidential history. It's not much compensation for him now, but he has become something of a goldmine for film-makers.Anthony Hopkins went to town on him in Nixon. Zack Snyder brought us a grotesque, parallel-universe Nixon in Watchmen. Frank Langella revelled in the wily, devious President in Frost / Nixon. Now here's Kevin Spacey with what could be the best Nixon yet, in Liza Johnson's delicious fantasy-satire about the day when the President met the King. Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
The Edinburgh film Festival’s signature prize, named after one of its most celebrated directors, is the Michael Powell Award for best British feature film. The dozen up for the award this year have included a Scottish love-triangle road movie, a dystopian drama, an adaptation of Macbeth, and a Welsh language thriller involving identical twins. Where once British film was a predictable affair, rooted in costume drama and social realism, it appears to be happily diverse at present.Two in particular took my fancy. And while neither is perfect, each fulfilled expectations – one for performance, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The wish to return to a place of past safety after a traumatic event is understandable. It helps if that place is remote and possibly beyond the reach of any authorities which may want to investigate the event, or even hold someone accountable. In the case of Iona, it’s a return from mainland Scotland to the Inner Hebridean island of the same name where she grew up. It’s not instantly clear what caused her to come back but when she does, it’s apparent that memories are long and the welcome is not as warm it might be. She has a son whom no-one has previously met. The past has to be faced and Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Susan Sarandon's natural radiance papers over a considerable number of cracks in The Meddler, writer-director Lorene Scafaria's loving, largely autobiographical tribute to the kind of mum you might want on occasion to throttle but in the end adore beyond all words.Her grin as wide as the distance between the American coasts that she has traveled in order to start life anew, Sarandon has been given – and runs with – one of the most generous-hearted screen heroines in years.So what if some of the film's rhythms are off and Scafaria's screen alter ego – Rose Byrne (pictured below, with Sarandon Read more ...
David Kettle
An underage prostitute dies from a drug overdose at a mini “bunga bunga” party with a high-ranking politician. When that’s one of a film’s less shocking moments, you know you’re in for a bumpy ride.With its steady stream of killings, maimings, kidnap and a frothing-mouthed killer canine, Stefano Sollima’s brutal crime thriller exploring corruption and violence among mafia clans, politicians and even the church in Rome is undeniably vicious and uncompromising. But it’s a beautifully elegant, taut piece of storytelling, too, which unfolds its intertwining threads with almost clockwork precision Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The earliest known versions of Rapunzel and Cinderella appeared in an Italian compendium of fairytales known as the Pentamerone. They were collated by Neapolitan courtier Giambattista Basile and published in the 1630s after his death. The 50-strong anthology also includes versions of Puss in Boots, Sleeping Beauty and Hansel and Gretel. None of these familiar stories has made it into Tale of Tales, Matteo Garrone’s cinematic sampler of Basile’s collection. Instead he has plumped for three lesser-known fables, each of them illustrating the moral folly of ruling potentates.No doubt for Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
To anyone who says that you can’t make a great film about golf, a film which is funny, sexy, and rousing, I have just two words; sadly, for those who attended the opening night of the Edinburgh Film Festival this week, those words are Tin Cup.That film was made in 1996 and starred Kevin Costner – the king of sports movies, in his goofy prime. The one that kicked off Edinburgh on Wednesday, Tommy’s Honour, has plenty of integrity and good intentions, as it celebrates a Scotsman regarded as the grandfather of golf, and his son, who was one of its first stars; it also confirms the movie star Read more ...
mark.kidel
In 1969, just before he made M*A*S*H, the innovative film that launched him in the world, Robert Altman had made his first proper feature. That Cold Day in the Park was a piece of period weirdness, all but forgotten in the shadow of his iconic Korean War black comedy "debut".An uptight upper-class Vancouver spinster rescues an apparently mute homeless teenager she finds drenched with rain on a bench in the park. She becomes fascinated by the boy, as years of repressed desire give way to an obsessive passion that comes out all wrong – tainted with shades of perverse fantasies she can hardly Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Stillness. Contemplation. Surreal spirituality. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s films share qualities hugely distant from Hollywood, closer to his other career as a visual artist, and rooted in his responses to his Thai homeland. It’s been six years since his last feature, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, bringing his work as close to mainstream notice as its quiet otherness permits. One shorter film, Mekong Hotel (2012), and much visual art, filled the gap till this contemplative return (which itself won Un Certain Regard at Cannes).In what isn’t a story Read more ...
Ed Owen
British filmmaking does gritty suburban dramas better than anywhere. Stories stripped of superficial action, from Ken Loach’s early work through to more recent stand-out films like Tyrannosaur. The Violators offers a new voice producing a superb feature set in a bleak Merseyside suburb. Debut director Helen Walsh is better known as a novelist, creating tales thick with human drama, sometimes in grim settings, and The Violators adheres to this template.Three siblings live together under the care of their constantly smoking, constantly angry older brother Andy (Derek Barr), terrified that their Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Telegram Sam” by T. Rex spent its second and final week at the top of the singles chart in the week of 12 February 1972. A month later, on 18 March, Marc Bolan and his band played two shows at Wembley’s Empire Pool to a sell-out crowd under the spell of what was labelled Bolanmania or T. Rextasy. Bolan seemed unstoppable. Before “Telegram Sam”, the success of “Ride a White Swan”, “Hot Love”, “Get it on” and “Jeepster” suggested he was as big as The Beatles. Fittingly, a real-life Beatle directed the camera crews capturing the Wembley shows on film.Born to Boogie was made at these shows. Its Read more ...
David Kettle
"A funny wee film about music and death" goes the strapline. That’s a pretty accurate summary of Paul Fegan’s touching documentary Where You’re Meant To Be, which follows singer Aidan Moffat – formerly of 1990s indie rockers Arab Strap – as he tours his bawdy urban updates of traditional songs around Scotland.There’s plenty of humour – sarcastic or absurd for the most part – and at a mere 75 minutes it’s certainly wee. Music’s a constant presence, with footage of gigs in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, the Western Isles, Skye and elsewhere, to varying reactions from the locals. And death – well, that Read more ...